Now and then I create an APBA player card in APBA Baseball for Windows 5.75. Wizard is not around anymore, but Player Editor in Advanced Draft can do the same thing.

I create a new data disk in Advanced Draft, then import a player from a farm team on one of the seasons disks I own. I try to choose one that played as little as possible. I import him into the disk I created (U-fun), and I change his name, stats, card, etc. with player editor. My favorite player I ever created this way I named Eli Schumpert. He was an excellent player in overall ability, but not amazing in any one area. I put him on the Boston Red Sox in a 1954 replay and on the St. Louis Cardinals in a 1971 replay. I also added 1998 McGwire, 1954 Jackie Jensen, and 1954 Minnie Minoso. I brought Jensen to 1971 because I enjoyed him on the ’54 Sox. I brought Minoso to 1971 because he was a nightmare against the Red Sox in the ’54 replay. Perhaps needless to say, the ’71 Cards won their division in the replay. It was a lot fun because Willie Stargell hit 63 home runs, but with McGwire come from the future, he did not lead the league in home runs. McGwire hit 74.

Anyway, back to the point of this post.

In creating these players, I just guess at how they will perform. Schumpert was a curiosity for me because I gave him a 3, 4, and 6 as well as a 1. This gave him a lot of extra base hits, but not a lot of homers (23 in the 1954 replay).

A few days ago, I realized I could use an invented player to figure out exactly what the result numbers 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, and other numbers produce.

Test Dummy

I made a player that I named Test Dummy using the method described above. I gave him three 3’s, three 8’s, and I changed all the other hit numbers to numbers between 26 and 32. Then I put him on the Houston Astros and reduced their offensive roster to just eight players, including Test Dummy. I had Duke Robinson, Jr. manage all the teams, set AIM to no injuries or fatigue, and I ran the whole season on automatic in background.

On my computer the season took about 20 minutes. Test Dummy hit 12 doubles, 49 triples, and no homers in 721 plate appearances. The three 8’s got him 42 singles. I did rough calculations and figured that the 8’s were producing hits about 2/3 of the time.

I ran that replay two more times and got similar results. Test Dummy did get 6 home runs off those 3s between the other two replays.

I ran those replays late at night. The next day, less tired, I made a couple improvements. First, I quit running the American League with the National League, cutting the replay time in half. Second, I gave Test Dummy all one number so that I did not have to guess how often a result number actually came up. Here are the results.

Test Dummy in the 1992 NL, with a spread of pitchers handled by micromanager Alexander Cartwright:

All 8s on card: .605 batting avg.
All 9s on card: .703 batting avg.

And here I thought 8s were better than 9s! Apparently not in the 1992 National League!

I’ll do some other numbers over the next few days, and I might try them in other years and other leagues.

The 1954 Cleveland Indians finally won a game in this 24-game tournament against the Giants, Dodgers, and Braves. They bumped their record to 1-7 with a 6-3 win over the New York Giants.

Cleveland has not been hitting well at all, having scored only 6 runs in their first 7 games. Apparently, the Giants thought they should give the Indians a helping hand. Three New York pitchers issued the Indians 8 walks, and Whitey Lockman let Indian pitcher Don Mossi’s ground ball roll between his legs with the score tied 3-3 in the 6th. A single by Al Smith and a home run to left center by Bobby Avila put Cleveland up by 3 to stay.

Mossi went all the way for the win, giving up 7 hits and shutting the Giants down over the last 4 innings.

Besides Avila’s game-winning home run, the highlight of the game had to be Al Rosen’s first-inning single to score Al Smith. It put Cleveland in the lead for the first time in the tournament. Hopes were not too high after both Wertz and Westlake popped out, but a steady feed of free passes to first base gave Cleveland opportunities to score throughout the first few innings.

Congratulations to the Indians for their first win. They will have a tough row to hoe being 6 games out with 16 to go, but if things can go this bad this early in the tournament, maybe then can go that good in the last two-thirds.

On day 7 of the 24-game tournament, the Brooklyn Dodgers finally got a win. Don Newcombe was unhittable except by Milwaukee starter Gene Conley. The 6’8″ pitcher stroked a single to left to break up Newcombe’s perfect game in the 6th. Newcombe retired Bruton and the next nine batters to wind up facing just one over minimum.

Conley was matching Newcombe’s no hitter until the top of the 6th when Pee Wee Reese launched a bomb to left-center field. Jackie Robinson almost made it two in a row by driving a ball off the left-field wall. Conley settled down after that. He retired the side and continued mowing down Brooklyn until the top of the ninth, when Brooklyn produced two more hits and a run. The 2-0 win was their first in seven games.

Cleveland, however, has been shut down for the whole tournament. They have managed only six runs in seven games. The Giants beat them 2-1, 4-1, and 3-0. They managed no more than four hits off any of the New York pitchers, and one of their two runs was unearned.

Over the seven games, the Indians have batted .138! Their pitching has been excellent, but five unearned runs and their pitiful hitting has made it impossible to win.

Meanwhile, the New York Giants have batted .298 as a team and hit ten home runs in seven games. Willie Mays has been the big gun, batting .367 with 4 home runs and 12 RBI’s, but he is not alone. Four Giants players sit at the top of the batting average leader board with Don Mueller leading the tournament at .433.

In the first 4-game series of this 24-game tournament, the 1954 New York Giants swept the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the Milwaukee Braves swept the Cleveland Indians.

As luck would have it, the winners are playing the losers in this second series. The Dodgers have come to Milwaukee, and the Giants are in Cleveland.

Milwaukee hung on to beat Brooklyn 3-2 on an 11th-inning walk-off home run by Eddie Mathews.

Warren Spahn pitched the whole way, giving up just 4 hits. Gil Hodges greeted Spahn with a home run to start the second. A walk and a ground out put Jim Gilliam on second, and Billy Cox singled to center to bring him home. For Hodges, it was his second consecutive home run. He combined with Duke Snider for back-to-backers in the bottom of the ninth against the Giants the day before. It was not enough, and they fell one run short, just as they would today.

Milwaukee tied it up in the bottom of the fifth. They loaded the bases with no one out, but Carl Erskine got second-baseman Danny O’Connell to ground into a double play. A run scored, but now pitcher Warren Spahn was up with Aaron on third. Erskine walked Spahn, which brought Bill Bruton to the plate. He took care of driving Aaron in with an opposite-field single. Erskine got Johnny Logan to end the inning, but not without a chewing out from the manager for walking Spahn.

That was it until the 11th when Eddie Matthews lined a shot over the right field wall.

In Cleveland, Wes Westrum drove in both Giant runs with a single in the second and a solo home-run in the eighth. Johnny Antonelli out-dueled Early Wynn, pitching a 3-hit gem that was only flawed by a single, walk, single in the fourth. New York took the first game of the 4-game series 2-1.

The Giants and Braves are now 5-0, while the Dodgers and Indians sit at 0-5.

The Giants too were able to complete their sweep of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Milwaukee and New York will go into their second series 4-0.

This was an exciting game, especially towards the end. Hank Thompson homered in the first and Al Dark in the sixth to give the Giants a 3-0 lead. Roy Campanella crushed a 2-run home run over the center field fence in the bottom of the sixth, and Brooklyn was back in the game. In the ninth, Clem Labine gave up hits Gardner and Mueller, then walked Monte Irvin. Mays singled in his 10th RBI of the season. Slow-poke Don Mueller couldn’t score from second on the hit. He did manage to score on Hank Thompson’s sacrifice fly, though, and the Giants went into the bottom of the ninth with a 5-2 lead.

The job of protecting that lead was given to Marv Grissom, who promptly gave up back-to-back home runs to Duke Snider and Gil Hodges. Carl Furillo flied out to the track, giving the Giants a scare, but Grissom settled down to get the last two outs.

The New York Giants win 5-4, and are now 4-0. The win went to Don Liddle, and Grissom gets a save despite the two home runs.

It was the second tight game in a row. Gene Conley 5-hit the Indians in yesterday’s game, winning 3-2. Bob Lemon gave up only 4 hits, but one of them was a 2-run double to rookie Henry Aaron in the first. The Indian tied it up in the 4th on an Al Rosen 4-bagger, but Eddie Mathews put the Braves back in front with a dinger in the 8th.

In this game, the Indians made 4 errors! The errors cost them only one run, but the rest of Cleveland’s play seemed as bad. Fortunately, a string of Indian pitchers kept the Braves relatively shut down. Feller, Houtteman, Newhouser, and Mossi shared the duties. Bob Feller left injured with some sort of arm problem after 2 outs in the 3rd, and the other three left for pinch hitters through the course of the game.

The game was hitless through four, but Houtteman gave up two hits that were accompanied by two Cleveland errors. They were lucky to get out of the inning with 2 runs. Mathews doubled in a run in the top of the 8th, and Al Rosen matched the run with a solo blast in the bottom of the inning.

Wilson’s pitching was beautiful. He gave up three hits and a walk, but Al Smith was nailed stealing when Avila swung and missed on a hit and run, Mike Hegan grounded into a double play, and Dave Pope was thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double. As a result Cleveland only sent 28 batters to the plate, 1 over the minimum.

The New York Giants are also on the verge of a sweep of the Dodgers after crushing them 11-3 yesterday. Willie Mays came to the plate with runners on 1st and 2nd each of his first four trips to the plate! He homered on two of them, resulting in 6 RBI’s and giving him 9 ribbies in 3 games so far in the tournament. Al Dark and Whitey Lockman both hit their first home runs in the game, and Sal Maglie was the winner. The Giants had 16 hits and 5 walks, so more than 20 base runners in the game.

The Giants hardly deserved to win this game. Despite 18 hits and 5 walks, they managed to score only 6 runs. They left 15 runners on base. Typical of New York’s fortunes today, Al Dark had an incredible 5 for 5 day but only 1 RBI and no runs. Don Mueller had a similar experience. He had four hits, but he drove in no runs and never crossed the plate.

The Dodgers had only seven hits, but Ruben Gomez gifted them 5 BB’s, and the Dodgers managed to turn the 12 baserunners into 5 runs despite 2 double plays by New York. The most notable event was a 2-run, pinch-hit homer by Roy Campanella that put Brooklyn up 5-4 in the 6th.

They couldn’t hold the lead because the Giants had runners all over the base paths. It was almost inevitable that a couple runners squeaked through to the plate. Russ Meyer gave up 10 hits in 5 innings, but his successors were no better. Milliken managed to allow just 1 run despite 6 hits and 2 walks in 4 innings, and Labine closed the game out by giving up 2 hits, a walk, and the winning run in the 10th.

Monte Irvin drove that run in, but the real hero at the plate was pitcher Ruben Gomez. He drove in a run in 2 of his 3 at-bats. His wildness at the mound, though–walking 4 batters in 5 innings–allowed the Dodgers to get 4 runs on just 5 hits.

In the end, though, no matter how sloppy the win, the Giants walked away with their second consecutive win.

In other news, Milwaukee handily beat Cleveland 5-1 behind the 5-hit pitching of Lew Burdette. Eddie Mathews homered in the game, and Andy Pafko drove in 3 runs with 2 singles. They are also 2-0.

Opening day was today for the 24-game tournament between the 1954 Indians, Giants, Dodgers, and Braves. I gave reasons for choosing those four teams yesterday.

Opening game was Milwaukee at Cleveland, and it was a squeaker. I managed the Braves, and Buckshot Williams (micromanager) had the Indians. It was a pitching duel between Warren Spahn and Early Wynn. There were almost no threats through eight innings. Wynn walked six, but he only gave up one hit. Unfortunately, he walked Eddie Mathews for the third time in the ninth. Eddie stole second, and Adcock lined a ball at Westlake in right field. Westlake dropped it, and the game’s only run scored on an error. Heartbreaker for Wynn.

Spahn seemed weakened, though, as the game went into the last half inning. He had given up a hit and a walk in the 7th and 8th. After one out in the ninth, he gave up a double to Al Smith. I left him in to face Avila because I wanted him to face the left-handed hitting Larry Doby, who was on deck. Avila blooped one to short right, and Al Smith went for home. The Braves had a better right fielder than the Indians, and that decided the game. Pafko gunned Smith down at the plate. It was funny to see the commentator question the decision to send Smith home.

I let Spahn get Doby with Avila on first, then brought in Dave Jolly to handle Al Rosen, which he did. Heartbreaking to lose opening day on a dropped ball in the outfield.

I am not sure why such a great URL was available, but I’m going to use it! If you found this, and you would like to help me make this blog worthy of the name, then I invite you to help me. My favorite things are results, unusual happenings (in a replay), or even tests.

While this blog was founded in 2016, this post was not written then. It was written 8/22/18.

For example, years ago I played a team against itself for 162 games using my lineups versus Pankin optimizer lineups. I think my lineups won, but I lost several memorized replays, my 1971 season disk, and some of my memory when I switched from Windows to Mac during my bout with leukemia. (The chemotherapy hurt my memory, not the switch from Windows to Mac.) I will have to repeat that experiment if I am to be certain.

Today, I will re-start a replay of the 1954 Cleveland Indians, San Francisco Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers, and Milwaukee Braves. I was going to play them in a 4-game league of 54-game league. I am 4 days in, but I decided to shorten the tournament to 24-games (playing each other team 8 times). I will have to initialize (restart) the schedule to do this.

I will play the tourney with those 1954 teams, then proceed to tournaments with World Series teams. My son and daughter-in-law bought me all the APBA World Series disks for my birthday one year. Great gift! I will keep overall individual records for all the tourneys and keep and ongoing champion as the tourneys progress. Maybe I will play the four winners after each four tournaments.